The Story

Hello all!

We are Hennie and Mia Tait and we have been planning this adventure for more than 2 years. After a long wait and a lot of red tape we're about to embark on our journey.

We are planning to do a 9000km round trip through Southern Africa on motorbikes. Yeeehaa!

Why Zahelo.....we chose it before we googled the correct spelling which should be Tsahaylu, but we've decided to keep our version, just because it's ours!
It was the word used in Avatar when they connected to the "horse" and the "bird" that they travel on. We're planning to "Zahelo" with our motorbikes, the people we meet, the roads we travel and places we see. Join us on our journey with this blog.

Saturday 18 February 2012

Here we come West Coast!

After a late nights and an early morning we said goodbye to Henri and set off for Strandfontein. We took the beautiful road via Bettiesbay and stopped in Hopefield for lunch.
Thanx Henri and Bye Kleinmond


Hopefield's Mall

From Hopefield to Elandsbay we were presented with some obstacles. First the back route plotted on the GPS brought us to a road closed off with barbed wire..detour!
Getting lost on the next best gravel road with really bad corrugation and sand, Mia's favorite, took up the balance of our day on the road costing us her numberplate and mojo.
We decided to stop in Eland's Bay and setup our first camp for the trip.

Lost but smiling

Exhausted from all the adrenalin we passed out for two hours. Two foil wrapped potatoes with a 3 bean salad was our maximum effort for supper. We did however managed a beer afterwards in the local Pili Pili surfer's backpackers, new to Eland's bay.
Elands Bay Camp

Ag shame

Up early today to get a head start and take on the next bit of gravel road alongside the railway line to Lamberts Bay and then to Strandfontein. Mia's mojo was back!..She kept thanking Rony (rough and ready) silently for all he taught her and hearing Celine Dion's "It's all coming back to me now" ....rusted... but her desire for a milkshake turned us to Clanwilliam.
We stoped at a garden nursery in Clanwilliam for a milkshake break and found some really inspiring words in their loo... WHY the Loo??
Here we also managed to organise an EC numberplate in the Northen Cape thanks to the help of CMB's great service.

Miles of train











Clanwilliam
Loo wisdom
The scenery was changing every couple of kilometers. We could feel the temperature rising, open fields with no trees, towns I've never have heard off and a lots of crows.
From Clanwilliam to Springbok (330km) was all tar. Our aim was to get as close to the border for tomorrow's crossing into Namibia.

We arrived in Springbok at 15:00 and decided on a B&B for a really early start tomorrow.



STAY posted for the best of Ai-Ais and the Great Fish River Canyon.....

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1 comment:

  1. Gerch22 February 2012 at 06:46

    The size of the Hopefield mall is overwhelming!!! and what exactly you can change about yourself in the loo I dont know.ha ha

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